Minister for Information, Honourable Fatimatu Abubakar has commended the members of the New Media Association for their effort in championing professionalism and using their platforms to engage stakeholders in national discourse. The Minister stressed the Government’s commitment to ensuring a conducive environment for free and responsible media.
Touching on some of the Ministry’s interventions, Hon. Abubakar mentioned the launch of the Media Capacity Enhancement Programme (MCEP) as the Ministry’s intervention to enhance the work of journalists through capacity building adding that 140 journalists have been trained since it was launched.
Hon. Abubakar announced that the 3rd Cohort of the MCEP will commence soon and urged the association to allow their members to participate in the training.
The Minister also informed them of the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM), a media development fund targeted at independent media institutions. She said that IFPIM’s interest is focused on the sustainability of media houses and urged them to take advantage of the fund.
The Minister called for a greater collaboration between the media and government to deepen the country’s democracy. She further assured them of her support and urged them to present a detailed proposal to enable her to initiate stakeholder engagements on the issues they have raised.
On their part, the President of the New Media Association of Ghana, Eugene Osafo-Nkansah assured the Association’s readiness to support the Ministry of Information and government to sanitize the digital media space in Ghana. He indicated that they would ensure continues training on ethics of professional journalism for their members and deal with fake content creators within their work environment.
“We will support government with the needed information since they make the laws for us to operate and also train our members using the ethics of professional journalism to deal with fake content creators within the industry,”.
The president made these remarks when he paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Information Honourable Fatimatu Abubakar yesterday as part of the Minister’s tour on some media houses in Accra. He appealed to the Minister to support them to establish an institution that will concentrate on training digital media and content creators. According to the Association, some of the giant social media owners who do not have representation in Ghana like Meta, TikTok and others should be encouraged to establish offices like they have in Nigeria and other African countries. This they said will help their members generate money from the content they create and for government to also raise more revenue from social media.
Source: MOI (PR UNIT)
